Texas 2010 Census Numbers Released

The US Census Bureau announced the results back in December of the decennial census and that the United States' total population was 308,745,538 as of April 1, 2010

Now the Census Bureau since February has been rolling out the state population numbers so that the states, counties and cities can begin the politically contentious apportionment process.

Texas in one of the states for which the numbers have already been released.  Roll your mouse over your county to see the 2010 population figure for it



The population of Texas as of the April 1, 2010 census date was 25,145, 561

And here's how the additional data plays out.

11,397,345    White                                                         45.3%
  9,460,921    Latino of any race                                       37.6%
  2,886,825    Black or African-American                         11.5%
       80,586    American Indian or native Alaskan                0.3%
     946,426    Asian                                                            3.8%
       17,920    Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander       0.1%
       33,980    Some other race                                            0.1%
     679,001    Two or more races                                        2.7%



Population of Harris County (Houston's county)  4,092,459
City of Houston   2,099,451

Thanks to the Katrina evacuees and the Latinos other states like Arizona chased out due to passing Juan Crow laws, Texas picked up 4 House seats.  Houston picked up much of that population influx and grew to the point that it triggered a city ordinance provision that calls for us to add two new city council seats when he population passes 2.1 million people.

Hearings are currently being held all over the city to determine how and where those two extra council seats will be divvied up.


And once the Texas legislature stops passing their neo-fascist right wing social agenda, they'll turn their attention to redrawing the US house, state house and state senate districts.

It's going to be a long hot and contentious political summer, especially in Houston since were having city elections in November.

Nepal And India To Count Trans People In Their 2011 Censuses

It's an idea I started talking about in 2007 on this blog that needs to happen for American based transpeople in 2020, but Nepal and India are actually executing..

When Nepal and India both conduct their 2011 national censuses, trans people will be counted in both nations.

Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics director Bikash Bista said, “Earlier, we had only two categories, men and women. But in the upcoming census, we are including a ‘third gender’ category.” This move will allow those who do not fit into binary gender categories or who identify solely as a third gender to be counted. The new category should also ease the path to citizenship, to which transgender Nepalis are already entitled by law.

Next door in India, when they begin the herculean task of counting the 1 billion people that live in the country, the count will also include transpeople for the first time as a separate category.

“This is a leap forward for us. Till now we were unknown people… now, we will have some status in our own country,” said respected Indian based international trans activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi. 

What is about to take place in Nepal and India and the additional legitimacy they gain in their respective nations by being counted in the their census is exactly is why I've been arguing for four years now we needed to have a trans category for the just completed 2010 United States census.

We need to get started now while they are doing the post mortem on the 2010 census in getting included in the 2020 one.   United States trans community, we can make this happen, we just need to do it.  

Frack the TS vs. TG catfight, let's just get some hard numbers about exactly how many of the 308,745,538 Americans living here are under the trans umbrella.

Let's get the trans identity option on the census now, get counted, and parse out who belongs to what group later. 

308,745,538

That's the population of the United States per the numbers released by the US Census Bureau at 11 AM EST.  The population grew at a 9.7% rate during the decade, the second slowest rate since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

And as we political junkies know, .the new population counts lead to reapportionment of congressional seats.

Texas was a big winner in in the reapportionment sweepstakes.   The Lone Star State will pick up 4 new House seats to increase our congressional delegation from 32 to 36 seats thanks to large increases in the Latino/a community population.   Florida gained two to increase its congressional delegation to 27 seats.

Six states, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington gained one seat

The big losers were New York and Ohio, which lost two congressional seats each.  Eight other states, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania lost a single seat

In a few months the political fun will begin in terms of redrawing the district lines, and no thanks to you peeps who stayed home in the last midterm election, the Republifools will have a major say in many states as to where those lines get drawn

The other problem is those lines and districts will also stay in effect until 2020.

One of the things I've been advocating for years and the trans community needs to be working on starting right now is having for the 2020 census 'trans' as an additional identity option so that we have official federal statistics and population counts to point to.

I have believed for a long time like Dr. Lynn Conway that the ratios quoted for us are wrong and transpeople are far more numerous in the population..    We just need the hard numbers to back it up.

I'm also convinced that one of the factors leading to us getting cut out of legislation is the Big Lie being told that 'we're just a small subset of the population'.when we're probably 3% of it.    

Having those hard census numbers makes it easier for is to not get screwed politically by unscrupulous pols and our enemies..

But stay tuned, the next few months are going to be very interesting politically.    It's also going to be fascinating to see as the data from the 2010 census continues to get rolled out and broken down by city, race, and other categories over the next year.  .